Is Joe Hockey the weak link?

The opposition has trained its guns on Joe Hockey on the first day of resumed parliamentary sittings, casting the Treasurer as the government's weakest link and his budget as dead in the water.

The aggressive move came as the embattled Treasurer moved to beef up his sales pitch, hiring an acclaimed author to write his speeches and improve his communciations team.

With Labor convinced it has the government in trouble, it directed every question to Mr Hockey, buttressed by backbench taunts suggesting he was sweating too much, was losing the confidence of his own backbench and was incapable of understanding the hardships of life for low-income Australians.

Joe Hockey receives a torrid time from Labor members in question time on Tuesday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

With the pressure mounting over stalled budget items, and concerns over the government's sales job, Mr Hockey has hired author David Hunt as his speechwriter.

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"I was really impressed with Girt, he's obviously a brilliant writer. He also has public service experience and I believe he will be a great person to work with," Mr Hockey told Fairfax Media.

Liberal colleagues concede Mr Hockey, who started out as the government's best parliamentary performer, has lost a degree of authority and confidence during the difficult post-budget period, during which Labor and the Greens have played hard-ball and the new independent-dominated Senate has flexed its muscles.

Hunt is the author of the bestselling book Girt, a humorous take on Australian history. He is also a public policy consultant.

But what he is not is an unquestioning supporter of Coalition policy. In fact, a quick trawl though his work on the social media site, Twitter, shows Hunt has been a trenchant critic of the government, issuing scathing critiques of its stance on asylum seekers, climate change, same-sex marriage and even Mr Hockey's first budget.

The day after the budget was released, Hunt tweeted "UNREAL SOLUTIONS. REAL LIES." with a Photoshopped image posted by actor and Labor supporter Rhys Muldoon.

That same day, he said "Commonwealth cuts to state health budgets will help end the blame game. Now we know exactly who to blame."

In November: 'John Howard preferred his "instinct" to scientific advice. Abbott's instinct is to kill off scientific advice" accompanied by an article about cuts to the CSIRO.

Hunt also labelled Australia's asylum seeker policy '#Australianshame', lamented a lack of progress on same-sex marriage, and criticised the Prime Minister for the lack of women in cabinet.

Despite this unfriendly commentary, the Treasurer seems to be fan of his work. In July, he congratulated Hunt on Girt via Twitter: 'well done David, "Girt" is a terrific read.' The author responded with a warm "Cheers Joe. Volume 2 proving to be a trickier bugger."

In a ferocious question time, Mr Hockey appeared to show signs of clear stress between questions, leaning forward and repeatedly re-reading briefing notes.

The government has shifted its rhetoric over the budget situation in recent days and now talks of the "budget mess" left by Labor, as opposed to the more extreme language used in the past in which the budget was said to be in crisis and facing an imminent emergency.

Yet key items remain no closer to resolution. Among them, the proposed $7 GP co-payment which has been the subject of discussions with independent senators, and proposed changes to higher education funding.

Earlier this month, Mr Hockey got himself into bother with remarks interpreted as suggesting the petrol excise increase which is also being blocked in the Senate was fair because poor people tend not to drive cars.

He later issued an apology.

The government is hoping to bring its mining tax repeal bill package back into the parliament as early as next week but is yet to secure a commitment of support from the crossbench.

When asked by Fairfax Media about Mr Hunt's previous positions on government policies, a spokesperson for the Treasurer said: "He is not being engaged for his policy advice, he is being engaged for his writing skills."

51 comments

Changing the way your message is written won't change the thinking behind it Joe. And that's what Australians are objecting to!

Commenter

rext

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 7:03AM

rextAll Hockey's really conceding is that he's done a poor job of lying to voters and that he needs to smarten up on that skill.

Commenter

bernie

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 7:58AM

Hired a new speech writer... to write his resignation speech.

Commenter

KIDDING

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 8:14AM

Hiring a writer, what a leaner! I wonder who is paying for it.

Commenter

Bruce

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 8:36AM

Hockey is publicly acknowledging he is paying someone else to do his homework.This might explain how he navigated his way from school to university but in the real world he should really do better.A pattern of doing it easy here:Rich parents, private school, free education, free degree, married a millionaire, got a gastric band to lose weight, never learnt to do a decent day's work in his life.

Commenter

Dude

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 8:45AM

I disagree. This is the first sign of intelligence that the LNP have displayed. Before they have had sycophants, now they may get diversity of opinion. The proviso is that they sack two for each one they hire.Imagine if Scott Morrison got someone to challenge his world view. Bring it on.

Commenter

bg2

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 8:54AM

@rext:Perhaps its time to set up a new Ministry to assist all the current crop to get their message out? A newly created Ministry for Propaganda could deliver a massive boost to the Abbott governments armoury. Perhaps given Joe's current poor ratings he could be moved sideways to head up this important position. Julie Bishop comes to mind for the Treasurers vacancy. Once exposed to the death stare the ALP and the cross benchers would quickly be brought into line.

Commenter

JohnC

Location

Gosford NSW

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 9:12AM

Spin is everything to Team Abbott. When in doubt, change the spin. They would never think that they were wrong, just that we are too stupid to understand them.

Commenter

Kelly

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 10:53AM

bg2,I agree that the LNP fools need to be challenged, but both camps say Hunt has not accepted a job writing treasurer in name only Joe’s speeches.

Commenter

Paul

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 2:27PM

He who pays the piper calls the tune as our propagandist friends know.